Well-known databases for storing large amounts of data are of course the Oracle database, the DB2 database from IBM and SQL Server from Microsoft. Another database management system is Firebird, which originates from Inprise’s Interbase database. Inprise later became known as Borland Software and is now called Micro Focus. The history relevant to Firebird is up this page to read. This relational database can be installed on a variety of operating systems, including Linux and Windows platforms, making it widely deployable. The first alpha version of Firebird 4.0 saw the light in 2017. After many developments, version 4.0 has finally been released with the following announcement:
Firebird 4.0 has been released
Firebird Project is happy to announce general availability of Firebird 4.0 — the latest major release of the Firebird relational database.
Firebird 4.0 introduces new data types and many improvements without radical changes in architecture or operation, the most important are:
- Built in logical replication;
- Extended length of metadata identifiers (up to 63 characters);
- New INT128 and DECFLOAT data types, longer precision for NUMERIC/DECIMAL data types;
- Support for international time zones;
- Configurable timeouts for connections and statements;
- Pooling of external connections;
- Batch operations in the API;
- Built-in cryptographic functions;
- New ODS (version 13) with new system and monitoring tables;
- Maximum page size increased to 32KB.
Please refer to the Release Notes for the full list of changes. The complete Language Reference is also available.
Binary kits for Windows, Linux and Android platforms (both 32-bit and 64-bit) are immediately available for Download.
| Version number | 4.0 |
| Release status | Final |
| Operating systems | Windows 7, Android, Linux, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019 |
| Website | firebird |
| Download | |
| License type | Conditions (GNU/BSD/etc.) |